Software Developer

Position: Software Developer

Location: Remote (within the United States)

• Candidates must permanently reside in one of the following states where Fishtank is a registered employer: AK, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, IL, LA, MA, MD, ME, NJ, NY, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA.

About Fishtank Learning

Fishtank Learning is a growing education technology non-profit that develops and shares high-quality curriculum materials through a dynamic, easy-to-navigate website. At Fishtank Learning, we believe that teachers and their students deserve access to the highest quality instructional materials. Our in-house curriculum team has spent the last decade drawing on their experience as classroom teachers to develop the Fishtank curriculum. We continually refine and improve our content and tools to reflect the best evidence-based practices and serve the evolving needs of teachers and students.

We offer our core curriculum in a convenient, openly-licensed format so teachers can use, adapt, and download it for free, and we offer a low-cost subscription-based curriculum product called Fishtank Plus. Fishtank Plus includes premium content and features to make implementing the curriculum easier and more effective.

Fishtank has also launched a new student-facing platform called Fishtank Student that allows teachers to assign work to students and students to complete work online.

Overview of Role

Fishtank Learning is looking for a Software Developer to help improve and maintain our curriculum website, and grow our student-facing application, ensuring a seamless and engaging user experience. This role will focus on developing new features, fixing bugs, optimizing performance, and collaborating with other team members across the organization to enhance our digital curriculum platform.

The Software Developer will work closely with the other developers and the Product Team to implement new functionality, improve the user interface, and support the content ingestion process. They will also collaborate with Curriculum Directors and Writers to understand technical requirements and ensure that curriculum content is properly displayed.

Job Responsibilities

• Develop, test, release, and maintain full-stack features across Python web applications.
• Partner with Product Director and Lead Developer to clarify requirements and define practical implementation scope.
• Own technical solutions while seeking input on consequential product or architectural decisions.
• Diagnose and resolve application, database, frontend, and performance problems.
• Monitor releases using Sentry, Papertrail, and New Relic; investigate regressions and drive fixes through resolution.
• Maintain server-rendered pages and frontend code using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and several modern and legacy frameworks.
• Work with PostgreSQL data models, queries, migrations, and performance concerns.
• Support curriculum content ingestion and internal publishing workflows.
• Write automated tests and improve test coverage around changed behavior.
• Participate in planning, code review, staging QA, deployment, and business-hours production triage.
• Document important technical decisions and operational knowledge.
• Grow toward co-ownership or ownership of curriculum application.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in any field.
• Professional experience delivering and maintaining production web applications.
• Strong Python web-development skills. Django experience helpful but not required.
• Experience designing and working with relational databases.
• Full-stack competency with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Strong backend debugging and problem-solving ability.
• Experience using tests, logs, error reports, and performance data to investigate production behavior.
• Ability to turn ambiguous needs into scoped technical work.
• Evidence of independent delivery and follow-through after release.
• Clear written and verbal communication with technical and nontechnical colleagues.
• Ability to work effectively within a small, fully remote team.

Nice-to-have

• Django, Django REST Framework, or comparable Python framework.
• PostgreSQL.
• React, Alpine.js, HTMX, Tailwind CSS, or Webpack.
• Maintaining or replacing legacy jQuery.
• Sentry or comparable error tracking.
• New Relic or comparable application-performance monitoring.
• Papertrail or comparable log aggregation.
• Education technology, K–12 curriculum, teaching, or nonprofit work.
• Self-directed or nontraditional software-development background.

Salary Range: $75,000 to $90,000

To apply: Please complete and submit the Fishtank Google Form application, which can be found through clicking the “Go to website” button. Only applicants who apply through the Google Form and submit the appropriate materials will be reviewed. Please note that you must be logged into a Gmail account to complete the application form. If you have any challenges submitting the form, please reach out to careers@fishtanklearning.org with the subject “Software Developer Google Form”. Please refrain from contacting this email with other inquiries regarding the status of your application.

Fishtank Learning, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.